World Famous Comics: Wagner - Die Walkure / Levine, Behrens, Norman, Metropolitan Opera (Levine Ring Cycle Part 2)
Wagner - Die Walkure / Levine, Behrens, Norman, Metropolitan Opera (Levine Ring Cycle Part 2)
Starring: Hildegard Behrens, James Morris, Jessye Norman, Christa Ludwig, Gary Lakes Directed By: Brian Large Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Format: Classical, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC Label: Deutsche Grammophon Number of Discs: 2 Number of Items: 2 Region Code: 1 Release Date: November 12, 2002 Running Time: 241 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1991
Amazon.com: It's no surprise that the second opera in Wagner's epic Ring cycle, Die Walküre, is the one Deutsche Grammophon released first on DVD: it's by far the most popular of the four parts of The Ring, from the thrilling Act I love duet for its brother and sister lovers, Siegmund and Sieglinde, to the spectacular finale of the "Magic Fire Music," as the god Wotan puts his beloved but disobedient daughter Brünnhilde into a deep sleep (no jokes, please!), over four hours later. This 1990 Metropolitan Opera production, originally broadcast on PBS to great acclaim, has been stunningly transferred to digital disc.
Musically, of course, is where any worthy Ring earns its keep, and under James Levine, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra makes the most sumptuous Wagnerian sounds of any current orchestra, as the dazzlingly fresh-sounding "Ride of the Valkyries" makes abundantly clear. The ravishing music is not solely instrumental, of course; the principal cast--Gary Lakes (Siegmund), Jessye Norman (Sieglinde), Hildegard Behrens (Brünnhilde), and especially James Morris (Wotan)--more than handles the vocal and acting demands, even those long stretches of unbelievably difficult singing passages that Wagner demands. This Otto Schenk production has taken its lumps for its conventional approach to Wagner's mythic music-drama. But it's an easy first approach for newcomers, and it's actually a rarity nowadays--among countless deconstructionist approaches--that many Ring-lovers will enjoy Die Walküre in its original setting and context. --Kevin Filipski
Skip Act One Gary Lakes is about as interesting as a half-eaten bowl of soggy cornflakes. Jessye Norman does not function as a "rescue-me" soprano. Kurt Moll is totally unable to play stupid characters. He always sounds like what he is--a natural musical genius. This is also a problem when he sings Osmin and Baron Ochs.
Jessye Norman's voice TOO BIG for Sieglinde! Yes I know Jessye Norman has a magnificent voice and anybody who dares to say otherwise is beyond the pale, but her voice is TOO BIG for Sieglinde. You should be able to close your eyes as you listen and imagine Sieglinde as a slip of a girl, a teenager.
The end of Act III is perfect. James Morris and Hildegard make a perfect team. I cannot watch them in this scene without tears. And everything else works well: the set, the changing light in the backdrop, the fire, even the flakes of ash that start falling shortly before the curtain. And it helps that Morris looks like a big tall norse god and Behrens looks like a valkyrie.
I have a quibble. In "Wer meines Speeres Spitze fürchtet, durchschreite das Feuer nie!", Morris runs the word Feuer and nie together, as if they were one word. I think there should be distinct break between the two words, thus giving a terrible finality to "nie". Can someone tell me if he did this deliberately, as a sort of style?
Act 3 lost in translation Sieglinde is gloriously sung by Jessye Norman, but perhaps we must accept the heft of her physical presence as a legacy of the old tradition for operatic sopranos, so different from the nubile divas who reign today. James Morris acts well but suffers frequent reproach for being vocally past his prime; however, in this performance i find that he uses the voice he has to excellent effect, with flawless musicianship. The scenery and stage direction are stodgy, but again, this is the old tradition for the Metropolitan Opera, not the theater-savvy regime of its present general director. Deutsche Grammophon's audio and video here are somewhat below the standards of their present-day products, but acceptable.
What is unacceptable are the English subtitles for most of Act 3 (on Disk 2). They are hopelessly garbled and out of synch, with endings of sentences often appearing two or more frames ahead of their beginning (and believe me, this is not due to the idiosyncrasies of German sentence structure). The first two acts on Disk 1 are completely free of this disconcerting defect. What happened to Quality Control for Disk 2?
Die Walkure Jessye Norman and Gary Lakes are wonderful in their respective roles. I was very moved by their performances both vocally and visually. Jessye Norman is such a Classical beauty.
Terrible Of the entire Ring Cycle, Die Walkure is probably my favorite--there's some great music, drama, and story here, and its ending the first time I listened to it (on the Goodall Ring, believe it or not--it is very highly recommended) moved me as deeply as almost anything I've ever experienced. Wagner himself drew on significant events of his own life to create it.
That said--this performance is truly awful. I understand that opera singers can't exactly look like who they're "supposed" to (there aren't too many guys looking like Siegmund walking around), but they should at least have a voice capable of cutting through the disbelief if they *do* look massively different from the way the character is supposed to. If that makes sense. The huge, hulking "twins" in Act 1 are painful to watch--and listen to. Whoever cast Gary Lakes as Siegmund did a horrid job (my strategy when things look this bad is to close my eyes and just *listen*--but his voice was so mediocre that this didn't work, either.) Jessye Norman is almost as bad as Sieglinde--no diction, which makes it hard for this (rusty) German speaker to understand what's being said without subtitles. Also, and I'm not racist here, but when one "twin" is black and the other white, something seriously went wrong. A fair chunk of Act 1 is devoted to the twins "recognizing" each other, each through the other, in semi-narcissistic fashion. Why not just make both twins black? That would have been more interesting. . .
Belief cannot possibly be suspended that far. Hunding (whose voice was adequate, not great) did the best job in Act I--which I don't think is a good sign. A lot of the acting was godawful. Painful, as I said. Act II is better--James Morris' Wotan is one of the best when taking into account voice, acting ability, and looks, and Hildegard Behrens' Brunnhilde is forgiven her occassionally uneven voice since her acting is decent and she doesn't conform to the Wagner soprano stereotype. (Though Rita Hunter was always *my* favorite Brunnhilde. . .)These two are what make me give this thing two stars instead of one. Act 3 is probably the best rendition of Wotan's Farewell we'll ever get on DVD. And who could miss Christa Ludwig (!) as Fricka? Even past her vocal prime, she's got some voice.
The orchestra is good, a little slow but I began my Ring Cycle obsession on Goodall's 17-hour-long (brilliant) odyssey, so it didn't trouble me. The percussion sometimes comes on too strong, but the orchestra never weighs anything down, which is another rare plus for this version.
Unfortunately, to get to the other two acts, one must wade through the supremely bad first act. It's terrible.
Go with the Boulez version of Die Walkure, if you can. The acting, singing, and casting are altogether better, and the staging isn't incredibly controversial, or I am becoming less devout a Wagnerite. Peter Hofmann is the textbook Siegmund, and Gwyneth Jones at the very least equals Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde.
I was disappointed in this, which is depressing, since it may be my favorite opera.
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